


Greater Unknowns

by cuthbert



Series: The Gratuitous Trans AU Nobody Asked For [3]
Category: Vampire Killer | Castlevania: Bloodlines, 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Tags May Change, Trans Male Character, but y'know John deserves a wife just as remarkable as his best friend is, ftmpreg, i'm twenty-nine years old and i'm writing my first mary sue god help me, towards gender and sexuality and how they intersect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:39:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuthbert/pseuds/cuthbert
Summary: Morris and Lecarde, and how their daughters happened.Will be updated as I pull stuff out of various notebooks and/or the fancy strikes me. This jumps around chronologically.





	1. Prologue: Like Tip of Oz, Kind Of

_1905_  - 

 

“Anyway,” John said, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back slightly as they walked, “I think Granny’s got ‘em convinced that if you just spend enough time over here you’ll all-of-a-sudden just _be Isabel_ _again_ , like Tip turnin’ into Ozma.”

Eric blinked at him, confused. “¿Perdón?”

“You mean you don’t have the Oz books over there _either?!_ ” John asked, turning to face him full on. “Come on, I’ll race you home, you got _readin’_ to do to catch up with me!” By the time he’d finished shouting that sentence, he was already a good ten feet ahead, boot-heels clacking double-time against the sidewalk.

“It’s not a fair race if you take off when you’re talking about it!” In spite of himself, Eric grinned as he chased after him. Even if he lost, he still had the best of best friends. That was better than bragging rights.

It didn't take long to reach the house, not running. Nor did it take long for both of them to kick off their boots, and race up to the bedroom beside the study. John thrust the books he'd mentioned at him, almost bouncing, and there was no way Eric could do anything but settle in right away to read. It wasn't even dinnertime before he'd raced through the both of them, with John laying next to him on the carpet drawing. Eric couldn't really tell what it was he'd scribbled down, but it seemed to involve a castle on fire. "Why would you compare me to her?" he asked, closing the second book, the one that ended with Tip becoming Ozma. He was cross, and he knew it showed in his voice, but he didn't _care._

John looked over at him, completely guileless. He didn't seem to be _capable_ of guile. It was something he'd grow out of, hopefully. He'd end up hurt if he didn't, and it was Eric's duty to make sure he never got hurt. "And you didn't hear me at all," John grumbled, snapping him back out of his thoughts. "You were all off in the clouds."

"I was," Eric said, grudgingly admitting to his distraction. "I don't _want_ to think about someone just... waving their hand, or a wand, and suddenly making me be a girl. Why would you even bring that up?"

"Because you had to be a girl like she had to be a boy," John said. No guile, again. This time he just looked worried that he'd hurt his best friend somehow. 

Something warm blossomed in Eric's chest at those words. Something warm, something bright, something he couldn't quite find a name for at thirteen. But it was something, all right. It was definitely something, and something good, something that made it a little hard to speak. 


	2. oh, I'm gonna bruise you/oh, you're gonna be my bruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years ago, John Morris got married. 
> 
> Three years ago, Eric Lecarde steeled himself to face a world that didn't quite understand him, alone.
> 
> Now, with a familial ultimatum propelling him to learn the word of his body, Eric's come to Texas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one where the drug use is first referenced - and yes, it's chloral hydrate, same as Dr. Seward took after Lucy... and, well, even before Lucy died. This will come up again - this is not really a terribly happy fic, though there will be plenty of happiness within it. If you're reading this, I think we all know that yes, the canon ship is and ever will be Eric Lecarde/Suffering Terribly.

_1922 -_

 

This was a house he had entered before. He was no un-dead, in need of an invitation to even step through the front gates, and indeed he’d managed that much, had climbed the stairs to the front porch, and now he found himself frozen. At least the taxi driver wasn’t witness to it, busying himself with shuttling Eric’s luggage from the car to the porch. He hadn’t asked what the cloth-wrapped “pole” he carried was; he had, thank God, apparently assumed it was a crosier or something similar. A spear would have taken explanation far more complicated than being assumed some sort of priest.

They’d been corresponding since they’d last parted. He was expected, he’d sent telegrams at every stop from New York. Still, to finally press the button for the doorbell took steeling himself _hard_ , squaring his shoulders and sucking in a deep breath. He left it pressed for the time it took him to draw such a breath again, twice over, the constant ringing finally provoking a familiar voice to bellow “All right, I get it, I’ll be right there!”

He stepped back, unable to keep a grin off his face as he watched John halfway throw himself down the last few stairs. Their eyes met through the glass of the front door, and he found his grin matched. The past few years had been hard on him, he could tell that much. There was a gauntness to his face that hadn’t been there three years before, and silver hair at his temples. He hadn’t stopped using the whip after all, obviously… but his body was still as strong and solid as ever, visibly so. “Hello, John,” Eric said as his dearest friend opened the door between them.

“Holy shit, Eric, your _voice!_ ” John’s own voice was a welcome sound, the surprised delight within it and writ plain on his face even more so. He laughed at himself, and stepped out from the foyer to sweep Eric up in a hug, spear and all. “God, I missed you. We were going to pick you up at the station in two hours, how are you _here?_ ”

“The train from New Orleans was running early for once,” Eric said, stepping back, and he shrugged. “I figured I’d hire a taxi instead of making you rush.”

“Sound logic,” John said, nodding solemnly, and then they were _both_ laughing.

 ---

He should have expected the shock that would come just after entering the house. It was as it ever had been - parlors to either side of the foyer, the big open squared staircase beyond them at the heart of the house. He remembered Leticia as she had been when she and John were wed, so much as he’d been able to remember anything of that day. He remembered her through a chloral hydrate haze, in pieces: blond hair escaping from under a veil, a bright blue wedding gown that seemed to match both their eyes, a laugh that sounded as though she were letting it all out at once because she was terrified she’d soon have nothing to laugh about ever again.

He should have known those memories would not be enough to prepare him for seeing her properly. She was very near his own height, which meant she was certainly an inch or so taller than John; somehow, pausing at the foot of the stairs made her seem imposing. Her hair was long and softly waved, unfashionably far from Mary Pickford ringlets, and hung mostly loose, only held back by braids curving back from her temples. It was like looking in a truly distorted mirror: one that reflected still the hair he’d been forced to lop off at the Institute, one that smoothed away his desperately cultivated muscle and exaggerated the curves he carefully hid away. She didn’t have the boyish figure the latest fashions demanded, and the harsh cut of the dress she wore was softened by the way her hips and chest forced its lines to strain around them.

“Oh,” she said, and damn it to hell, her voice made it sound musical, “you’re early.” Southern women had a way of speaking that could pack ten minutes of talking into three words, and she’d done so just then. It wasn’t that she had the broad, honeylike slow way of speaking that one associated with Southern Womanhood; indeed not, she had the same oddly clipped middle-of-the-States accent most people he’d met in Austin did. She had the _manner_ , the way of placing careful emphasis on parts of syllables and arranging her body and face to speak where she didn’t. Such a skillset was dangerous in the hands of a woman trained as a surgeon, Eric thought. She’d use it like she might use a scalpel, and carve him to bits.

John shifted next to him, shuffling a foot against the rug nervously. He’d known his Best Man was off in the clouds, that day three years gone; he’d seen him mix the chloral, watched him down it like a shot, and only then coughed so that Eric would see him reflected in the mirror before him. He’d been saddened, not angry, and if he hadn’t already begun to float out of his body Eric might have been furious about that right then. John had wanted them to get along, his wife and his best-friend-sometimes-lover. He might be able to, now, if the pair of them could get over the shock of just how alike they looked. Evidently she hadn’t expected it either, from the astonishment she’d spoken without speaking.

“Well, ah, seeing as you didn’t quite meet _properly_ the last time we were all three in the same place,” John said, and faltered, obviously embarrassed for Eric’s sake. He straightened up, and gestured expansively at the woman before them. “Mister Lecarde - my wife, Doctor Leticia Morris.”

She walked forwards like one would coming down a red carpet, and then stopped, and smiled disarmingly. Not deliberately so, though, it was an honest smile. “Née Anderson, not that it matters at this point,” she said, and extended her hand plainly expecting that Eric would shake it. 

“I’m pleased to finally be given your full name and title when I’m in a condition to remember it,” he said with a self-deprecating half-smile, and took her hand in his only to bend and kiss the back of it. She giggled, and he looked up at her, still halfway to taking a knee, and smiled. He couldn’t help it, she’d charmed him with that smile and that guileless beginning-to-a-handshake, that bell-like little laugh doomed him to fondness. It struck him as he stood back up why she seemed familiar, paired with the name Anderson. “We met years _before_ this fool we are both so fond of swept you off your feet, didn’t we? All three of us?” 

“Well, he did _tackle_ me that time,” she said, turning a wicked grin on John, who blushed.

Eric turned to look straight at him, propping his hands on his hips. “I _knew_ you were sweet on her from then on in,” he said, only slightly exaggerating the triumphant tone of his voice. “I knew it. ‘There’s a girl back home’... I should have known right then who you were talking about.”

John flushed an even deeper shade of pink looking between the pair of them, and finally laughed, and threw his hands up in the air. “I was worried you two wouldn’t get along, and now here I am one of the Romans at Cannae!”

\--- 

Lunch was, initially, a less awkward affair than Eric had feared. John and Leticia both fell over themselves to get it prepared, insisting that he needn't help, that he was their guest. ("If we'd met you at the station we'd have found someplace to go, it's Marcus' day off," John said by way of explanation for the lack of help.) It was endearing, watching his best friend and his towering Amazon of a wife dart about with plates and things like pitchers of tea and serving dishes holding food. They truly were a good match... one he now regretted bringing the interruption tightly wound within his breast. 

He picked at his food, and he could tell they were both worried, and it was finally enough that he just had to set down his silverware and take a sip of tea and sigh to steel himself. "My siblings have given me an ultimatum," he said. "I am the eldest. The Alucard Spear passes to the eldest, and the eldest child of the eldest, unless it is formally handed down, and neither of them has a child with any aptitude for fighting. They have told me that I must produce an heir, or... well. There are other ways of making an eldest, and Silvia would not hesitate at any of them." John nearly choked next to him, and at that Eric pushed his plate away, roughly, resting his elbows on the table to bury his face in his hands. This was not how he had planned this. Indeed, this was what he had feared on his way here, that he would blurt everything out in a rush.

He had not planned on Leticia reaching over the table, either. He had not planned for a gentle touch to both of his wrists, guiding his hands down. He looked slowly up, his eyes meeting the ones that looked so like to his own, and while he was again distracted by the similarity between them she seized his hands. "I know I married into some queer business," she said, voice soft and kind... and wry, just wry enough that he could tell she meant more than one thing with that word. "John doesn't hold any secrets back from me."  

Eric looked sharply at him, and John refused to meet his eyes, staring down at his empty plate with a blush bright across his cheekbones. "Then I needn't have disgraced myself at your wedding?" Eric asked, turning back to face his best friend's wife. At her slow nod, and the way her eyes didn't leave his own, he squeezed her hands to hide any trembling in his own. "I should say it outright, then, shouldn't I."

"Yes," Leticia said, at the same time as John. She was gently encouraging, while he sounded like a man being asked if he knew why he was before a firing squad.

"There is no one in the world I would trust better than my best friend to be the father of my child," Eric said, forcing himself to breathe steady through the terror that came with the thought of it. "But I cannot do this without your assent, nor without your help. You are his _wife_ , and I... I am an incorrigible invert, yet still drawn to one specific man. Years apart could not cure me, and he is still one who I trust more than any other."


	3. I wonder if the world's to blame/I wonder if it could be me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the middle of summer, and there's a war on. Many men fight and die, but two men in particular are too busy to do that, too busy with chasing a vampire across Europe. It makes for heavy, intense conversations when they have a few moments to rest.

_1917 -_

 

The night was too humid for sleep, even sprawled out on top of a thin blanket with no other cover. 

“If I could be a normal woman for you,” Eric said softly, “I would.” Sheer frustrated exhaustion had loosened his tongue; exhaustion, and the sound of distant guns, and the fear of a pointless death that carried with it. These weren’t words that could be said anywhere but under a blanket of stars, weren’t words that could be said in the light of day, weren’t words that could be said looking John in the face.

There was a heavy pause. The crickets seemed too loud. Miles away, artillery fire rolled like thunder. “I know,” John said, finally. “But… you aren’t. You aren't a woman, and that’s… that’s _why_ , Eric. That’s why I’m so… you’re _you_ , you’re _not_ ‘a normal woman’, you’re _yourself_.”

“But I’m not someone you can marry,” he protested. It wasn’t like having the wind taken from his sails, that reply. It was like having the strings that kept his joints in place cut, like he’d done to one of Silvia’s expensive dolls as a curious child. He was going to fall to pieces at this rate; he could almost believe some part of his elbow would roll away to where he’d be caught looking for it, and then he’d be lectured and told to put himself back together without help. He would manage, of course, just as he had managed with the doll.

John rolled onto his side, propping himself up to look at Eric as best he could. “Marrying you would kill you,” he said with a frustrated sort of finality. “It’d… the way they expect women to live as wives would kill you even if you were one. If we’re both like this, we can stay in each other’s lives, even when I do get married.” It wasn’t the dark that made his face impossible to read. The moon was almost bright enough to read text by. No, that it was night was no excuse.

“‘When’, John?” He’d meant the question to be cutting, to be cold and harsh and as much a stab turned back as that one word had felt like aimed at him. It came out too quiet to be anything but the sound of his heart breaking. “It was always ‘if’, when we were younger. Did you finally find someone, then, while Gwendolyn was dying and I was losing my mind?” He couldn’t even sound bitter looking up at his best friend’s face, watching his expression go from unreadable to as miserably heartsick as he felt himself.

“I have to have an heir somehow, Eric,” John said. “Even if we aren’t Belmonts, the line can’t break with me. If I’m lucky, she’ll be someone I can live with.”

“And if you aren’t, what then?”

It was as though the question were a physical blow, the way John reacted. He fell down with a groan, sprawling on his back. “Aw, hell, I don’t _know_ what then. What kinda burr got under your saddle, huh? All this serious talk out of nowhere… wait, don’t tell me, is it that ti- ”

“ _Cállate_ , idiota!” As choked up as he’d been, Eric was suddenly furious. Surely with the moon so bright the flush on his face would be visible if he sat up to properly aim the punch he wanted to throw. He’d look like the blushing maiden he’d never been, and that kept him lying where he was, seething in silence.

But John wasn’t the type to say such things, thick-accented cowboy stupidity followed by callow dismissal wasn’t ever his style. He wasn’t the kind to be cruel like that. He did, though, know exactly how easily a jab at his dignity could take Eric from the lowest depths of misery to the very peak of fury. He’d rather weather his best friend’s rage than see him sick at heart.

The silence between them was as heavy as the conversation had been, maybe more. John was the first to speak. “I’m sorry. I should’ve… I could have done that better.”

“Well, it worked,” Eric told him, forcing himself to sound flippant. “You managed to... redirect me very well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I need to update the summary for this whole thing to point out that it's going to jump around in time.
> 
> i'm going to be Going In on the inversion theory take on gender and sexuality and the assumed overlap there in the next chapters. this is the very tip of that iceberg. consider this your last warning after the tag cloud, 'k?
> 
> ETA 10/8/18 - yes, this recording is from a year later than the chapter is set, but here's the song the title is lifted from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DbPAGQmVq0


End file.
